


Omniscient

by Darkrivertempest



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: Angst and Humor, Blood and Violence, Explicit Language, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, I'll add more tags as I upload chapters, Season/Series 04, magic spells, random facts
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-06-12
Updated: 2017-06-11
Packaged: 2018-11-13 02:27:21
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,834
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11175087
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Darkrivertempest/pseuds/Darkrivertempest
Summary: Buffy and the Scoobies have no idea what the chip inside Spike's head is capable of, and once it starts to misfire, Spike becomes a wealth of information.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This was my very first story in the Buffy universe... a long time ago... in a fandom far, far away. It's also the longest story I've ever completed. I've cleaned it up considerably and since I wanted all my fics in one place, I'm uploading the chapters here once DelpiPSmith makes them look shiny.
> 
> This starts with the Season 4 episode, _Something Blue_ , and basically goes off canon from there. Since this will follow that episode (and subsequent episodes), dialogue from the series is included within the story. I do not own the series dialogue, let's be clear on that. 
> 
> **Disclaimer:** _Everything that is recognizable as Buffy dialogue and universe is property of Joss Whedon and Mutant Enemy Productions. I make no money from this story whatsoever._
> 
> This story was originally beta'd by the lovely trio, IBE, SSDDGR and Dusty. DelpiPSmith has recently agreed to edit the chapters since my writing style has changed considerably since I first wrote this. This is an Omniscient POV - something I rarely write, so be mindful of that if it seems that I'm not sticking to one character's POV or another. 
> 
> I purposefully left certain things not tagged. If I think something will be triggery, I'll state it in the chapter notes at the beginning.
> 
> With all that said... let's get this show on the road!

“So… you saw their faces but you can't describe them,” Buffy sighed in exasperation.

“Well, they were human. Two eyes each, kind of in the middle,” Spike clarified.

“Uh-huh. And the lab, where’s that at?” 

“Must be underground. I came out through an air vent. I don't know exactly where. I'm done. Put the telly on.” He looked away and clammed up.

The vampire smelled the blood before Giles reached the bathroom, mug in hand. His salivary glands went into overdrive. “It's about time! Hope you got it warm enough,” Spike grumbled.

Instead of handing the mug to Spike, Giles handed it to Buffy without saying a word. 

She looked in the mug and made a face at the stench that wafted up from the _Kiss the Librarian_ cup. “God, this stuff is disgusting, not to mention the gag factor involved with me feeding it to you.” She shoved the mug towards Spike with the straw dangling over the edge.

“I don't know why you're so dainty all of a sudden. You've done this for Angel—you must have,” he said between huge slurps, hoping to gross her out even more.

She pulled the mug away suddenly, leaving Spike with the straw dangling from between his lips, blood dripping into the bathtub.

“Hey! Give it!” he yelled in outrage. 

“Okay, that's it! The invalid amnesiac routine is over. The kitchen is closed until you can tell me something useful about the Commandos,” she threatened. 

His bleached head tilted to the side, an expression of thoughtfulness on his face. “I'm tryin' to remember… it was very traumatic.” He topped it off with his best sad puppy dog eyes and feigned a pout.

She rolled her eyes. “How long are you going to pull this crap?”

He stared hard at the Slayer. “How long am I going to live once I tell you?” He held no illusions; once he told them everything he was as good as dust.

“Look, look, Spike,” Giles interjected. “We have no intention of killing a harmless… uh, creature… but we have to know what's been done to you. We can't let you go until we're sure that you're… i-impotent,” he stuttered. Clearly the whole conversation was making him very uncomfortable.

“Hey!” 

“Good Lord, sorry, poor choice of words. Until we're sure you're, you're…”

“Flaccid?” Buffy offered.

Righteous outrage flared across Spike’s face as he started to struggle with the bonds that were holding him. “Oh, you are one step away, missy!”

“Oh, help, help! He's going to scold me to death!” she mocked sarcastically.

That was it; the straw that broke the proverbial camel’s back. Spike growled and pulled on the chains that bound him to the tub. The cuffs bit into his wrists as he lunged at the Slayer, forgetting the little piece of hardware the goons had shoved in his head to hinder his enjoyment of torturing the evil wench.

As his plans to hurt the Slayer in the most delicious of ways once he reached her solidified, blinding pain raced through his skull and paralyzed him, stiffening his body to the point of corpse-like rigor mortis. The chains pulled taut against his body, then he went limp with a whimper as his head lolled to the side, blood trickling from his nose onto his lip. 

When he didn’t move for quite some time, Buffy frowned and looked back at Giles. “Is that normal when he gets zapped?”

He bent down and looked into Spike’s gaunt, paler-than-normal face. “I’ve not seen the device work before, I have no reference.” He pulled the vamp’s eyelid up with no reaction. “I do believe he’s passed out from the pain.”

Giles fished in his pockets for the key to Spike’s cuffs and started to unlock them, but Buffy grabbed his hands to keep him from completely releasing the seemingly unconscious vamp.

“Wait! Are you serious? This is Spike! As in _gonna kill my third Slayer_ Spike! You can’t just let him go, even if he does resemble _The English Patient_ ,” she warned.

Said topic of discussion moaned and rolled his head around the edge of the bathtub just as Giles finished re-locking the restraints.

“Bloody fucking hell! I feel like a seasick fish!” Spike moaned, clutching his head.

Buffy snorted in amusement. “Fish don’t get seasick, Bleached Wonder.”

“Do so, Slayer… and frogs drink through their skin,” he shot back, the pain receding. He wiped at the blood on his upper lip and sucked it off his thumb. 

“Ugh, you’re disgusting! That’s from your nose, Spike!”

“And give the nasty blonde bitch a Kewpie doll for pointing out the obvious,” he sneered. “Oh, and by the way… only one out of every fourteen women in America is a natural blonde.” Leering at Buffy’s crotch while waggling his eyebrows, he continued. “Makes me wonder what color your tight and curlies are, love.”

Her eyes widened as she huffed. She then leaned towards the tub, but just out of reach, pulling her hair to one side and stroking the throbbing jugular. “Oh, look at my… poor neck? All bare and tender and exposed… all that blood just … pumping away,” she teased seductively. 

Spike was all but licking his lips, nostrils flaring to catch the barest scent of the Slayer’s blood. “You know, pet, you can lose up to a third of your blood and still survive… give a bloke a nip, yeah?”

“Oh, please,” Giles intoned wearily as he walked out of the bathroom. 

Buffy narrowed her eyes at Spike. “Willow can always use a truth spell on you. Not sure it would work on a vampire, but we can try. Make you fess up.” 

Spike curled his tongue behind his teeth and grinned. “Don’t rightly know how that would turn out, pet, seeing as I’m always truthful about being evil.”

“Oh, I think your version of evil now is telling really bad vampire jokes,” she snickered.

“So what do you call a vampire that lives in the kitchen?” Spike asked out of the blue.

She looked at him blankly. 

“Count Spatula.” 

She groaned and rolled her eyes.

“What do you get when you cross a vampire bat with a pygmy?”

“Spike…” she warned.

“A little sucker.” He grinned, unrepentant.

“That’s enough, Spike.”

“What kind of ship does Dracula captain?” he pushed.

“Giles!”

“A blood vessel.”

“Giles! Make him stop!”

“If those two don't kill each other, I might lend a hand,” Giles muttered to Willow, who was reading through a copy of _Modern Witch Crafting_. 

Willow watched as Giles took a healthy swing from his tumbler of Scotch in exasperation, grimacing as it burned his throat. Checking her watch, she realized she was a little late for class, so she popped her head round the bathroom door to say goodbye to Buffy.

“Hey, Buff, I’m gonna go but I’ll be back in the morning with donuts after I stop at the magic shop.” She glanced at Spike, who was now trying to reach the knobs on the small television set that Giles set up for him.

“Hey, Red! Did you know that gingers feel more pain than other women?” he asked, grunting as he stretched lengthwise across the tub. 

Her face scrunched up as tears gathered in her eyes, her breakup with Oz still weighing heavily on her. But this kind of remark from Spike was way off in left field. “Um, what makes you think that we feel more pain?” she asked, curious in spite of herself.

“Well… a doc, um… name’s Liem I think, yeah…well…” Spike grunted again as he tried in vain to reach the TV once more. “Well this Liem bloke, he did a study to determine whether redheads felt more pain than other women. Don’t know why he chose redheads, just at good as any other I s’pect. He gave the lot of ‘em a common anesthetic drug, and while they were kippin’ he pricked ‘em with needles and monitored their reflex responses to pain. Seems redheads need two percent more happy-drugs to numb their pain.” He finally gave up in frustration and lay back in the tub. “Probably a genetic glitch or something.”

“A genetic glitch?” she mumbled, then murmured a hasty goodbye to Buffy as she dashed out the door.

Buffy glared white-hot daggers at the vamp, who was oblivious to the pain he’d just caused. Without thought, she hauled off and knocked him right upside the head; which unfortunately, caused the chip to fire. Again. Spike screamed this time and she was afraid the chains wouldn’t hold him secure. 

“Giles!” she yelled as she rounded the corner into the living room.

He sighed in resignation, wanting to drink the remainder of the bottle. “What is it now, Buffy?”

“There’s something seriously wrong with that… that… _thing_ that curbs Spike’s enthusiasm!” 

They both looked in the bathroom at the prone Spike, blood once again dripping from his nose. “What happened this time?”

A small flash of guilt crossed her face. “Um… I kinda went Rocky Balboa on his head?” 

“Whatever for? It’s not as if he can escape those chains—they’re magically reinforced. His threats are more of an annoyance than anything else, I assure you.”

“Well, he said some damaging stuff about Willow’s genetics… or… something,” she murmured, a hint of remorse creeping in.

“Why on earth would Spike talk about genetics with Willow? Why would he talk about them with, well… anyone?” 

She shrugged her shoulders. “He’s been acting really weird, and I mean weirder than usual for Spike. He’s been spouting random facts and telling shitty vampire jokes.”

“Buffy, language,” he admonished.

“But, Giles, these were groaners, I swear!”

“It doesn’t matter. He’s waking up again. Let’s see what’s going on in that mind of his.”

“That sounds like a dubious prospect, Watcher,” Spike responded hoarsely. 

“Yes, well Buffy tells me you are acting out of the norm, even for you. Since when do you know anything at all about genetics?”

The vampire blinked slowly and gathered his bearings. “Don’t rightly know. One minute I was enjoying my _Passions_ and cuppa Wilbur, and the next I felt like the bleedin’ Encyclopedia Britannica.” Sudden realization of his precarious situation made him audibly gulp. “What the hell did those tossers do to me?”

Giles frowned. “Spike, I’m going to give you a phrase or a word and I want you, in turn, to produce an anagram as fast as you can. Is this amenable to you?”

“Amenable?” He stared at the Watcher. “Sure, Rupes.” He had no unearthly clue as to what the man was on about, but he’d play along for shits and giggles.

“William Shakespeare.”

“I’ll make a wise phrase,” Spike spun out promptly.

Giles eyebrows rose considerably. “The American Revolution.”

“Unite to revile a monarch.” 

Giles grinned a lopsided smirk. “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.”

Spike wiped the blood still dripping from his nose and chuckled. “Crap LP sung by the LSD prone Beatles.”

Giles moved closer to Spike and bent down to eye level. “Truth is…”

“It hurts,” he said softly.

Giles narrowed his eyes on Spike. Digging around in his pocket, he fished out the key to Spike’s cuffs and unlocked them, all the while ignoring Buffy’s protests in the background. 

“Thanks, mate,” Spike said quietly, nodding his head in appreciation as he rubbed the raw spots on his wrists.

“Don’t make me regret it, Spike.”


	2. Chapter 2

Giles shoved a highly flustered Buffy towards the door with a reminder to have her tell Willow that the ingredients for the truth spell would not be necessary. He suspected that if he asked the right questions, Spike would be more than forthcoming.

“But, Giles, this is... is… Spike!” She threw her hands up in frustration, standing in the entryway as she watched the bleached menace peruse Giles’ bookshelves, looking for something. She couldn’t think of anything to say about the possibility that her Watcher was going to be alone with a master vampire, albeit a ‘neutered’ master vampire, for an extended amount of time, sans restraints. No matter what kind of muzzle the Army goons had fitted Spike with, she still didn’t trust him. 

Glasses dangling from the hand that was pinching the bridge of his nose, Giles muttered softly, “Buffy, I don’t trust Spike either at this point. However, certain... circumstances have come to light and it would be foolish not to explore those possibilities.”

She stared at her Watcher. “English please?”

He rolled his eyes at the state of America’s youth. “Spike’s malfunction may be to our benefit. It seems he may have an abundance of information off the top of his head, literally. I have no clue as to the boundaries of this ability, so until then, I think it wise to let him be, as long as he remains innocuous to the group and the public in general.”

She still stared. 

Pushing her out the door, Giles whispered harshly, “I want to know what’s going on in that bloody mind of his and I don’t think he’ll give me even so much as a crumb if you’re in the flat!”

Taken aback by the abruptness of his tone and the fact he wanted her gone, Buffy nodded mutely, mumbling something about having to check on Willow anyway. A few feet from the door she turned to say something else, only to find the door closing hard with a solid thud. She frowned and headed towards campus.

* * *

Giles hated being insensitive towards his Slayer, but this Spike thing really had him puzzled. He leaned against the door and watched the vampire peruse his non-demon library, pulling out a book here and there, flipping through the pages before placing it back on the shelf. 

“Would you like some coffee?” he asked somewhat awkwardly.

Holding a volume open, Spike barely looked up. “That’d be right civil of you, Rupes.”

“How do you take it?”

“Coffee should be black as hell, strong as death, and as sweet as love… so says a Turkish proverb,” he replied, grinning like a fool.

“Turkish, you say?” Giles raised an eyebrow.

“Did you know that Istanbul is the only city in the world that is on two continents? Half of the city sits in Europe, the other half in Asia,” he stated, ignoring Giles’ comment.

Giles remained silent, leaning against his kitchen counter, hoping Spike would divulge more information, but the vamp remained quiet. He finally selected one book from the case, sat down on the sofa, and began reading. 

“What have you there?”

Spike flipped the book over and read the spine. “The Murders in the Rue Morgue.”

“Ah, Edgar Allen Poe… a dark and mysterious man,” he nodded in contemplation.

“He was credited with breathing life into the detective story,” Spike offered. “That Conan Doyle bloke even acknowledged it. Said, ‘Each of Poe’s stories is a root from which a whole style of literature has developed.’ He was good chap, that Doyle. Met him once, at Edinburgh uni. He’d become agnostic. Said he modeled Sherlock Holmes after his professor Joseph Bell,” Spike said idly, flipping through the pages and looking at some of the etchings that illustrated the book.

“You knew Sir Arthur Conan Doyle?” Giles exclaimed in amazement, sitting down on the edge of the coffee table.

Spike looked up at Giles’ eager face. “Thought you were gonna make a cuppa joe?”

Giles had the grace to look abashed. “Yes, yes… quite right.” He moved into the kitchen, keeping an ear out for anything Spike might utter.

“Tosser,” Spike grumbled under his breath when Giles was out of earshot. Spike was not pleased at the situation in which he found himself, his mind a jumble of thoughts from the inane to the spectacularly brilliant. He could still feel twinges running amok in his head and it made him feel wholly vulnerable to just about everyone and everything. His nosebleeds had stopped, but he suspected it was just temporary. This thing inside him was going to cook his goose… and good. 

He glanced up at the clock then over at the telly. _In an American home, the telly is on for seven hours and forty minutes every day._ Sodding hell! He was even thinking useless random thoughts aloud in his head! What the fuck had these wankers done to him? _Time to drown out the noise._ Besides, _Passions_ was coming on. 

“It’s telly time, Watcher!” he yelled towards the kitchen.

“In a moment, Spike.”

He heard cups and saucers rattling around, and the aroma of strong coffee wafted into the living room. He glanced up at the clock again, feeling antsy.

“Get a move on, Watcher! _Passions_ is on! Timmy's down the bloody well, and if you make me miss it, I'll-”

“You’ll what, Spike? Lick me to death?” Giles huffed as he set down the tray laden with coffee, sugar, and cookies. Reaching behind Spike, he dug down in between the sofa cushions and handed him the TV remote.

Spike grabbed it without so much as a thank you and turned the set to the proper channel… or it would have been, had _Jeopardy_ not been playing. “Fucking hell!” Spike roared. 

Giles smothered a chuckle. “Not what you were expecting?”

His glare was frosty. “Sod off,” he muttered.

“This can be heard as far as twenty miles away,” Alex Trebeck said to the contestants.

“What is thunder?” Spike answered, propping his head on his hand, figuring he might as well watch something useful.

“What is cannon fire?” asked one of the contestants, a particularly dull-looking nerd with oversized glasses.

“No, I’m sorry, Jason, that would be thunder,” Alex corrected. “This speedy dog also has the best eyesight,” was the next question.

“What is the greyhound?” Spike answered, studying his chipped black nail polish in an obviously bored manner.

Giles stared at the slouched Spike. Spike affected an uninterested attitude but he wasn’t fooled as he was, once again, correct in his answer.

“This was the first US college to admit women and African-Americans,” Alex offered.

Spike sighed. “What is Oberlin College in Ohio?”

Giles watched in amazement as Spike answered question after question correctly, all while looking too tired to even care.

“Fifty percent of all of these items printed in the US are never sold.”

“What are magazines?” Spike mumbled as his eyes started to close in exhaustion.

“Spike, there’s a spare bedroom that you may use with the proviso that you strictly adhere to the rules which I am about to give you,” Giles offered quietly.

“I’m listening.” He yawned. His head was sounding up a killer of a headache.

“Verbal threats are one thing, but you may not, and I repeat may _not_ harm anyone that comes into my house. Is that clear?”

“Is that the only hitch, Watcher?” 

“By no means. If there is even so much as a hint of draining a victim, I don’t care how vulnerable you are, I will stake you myself,” Giles warned harshly.

“Startin’ to sound like I might be beggin’ to be staked compared to what might happen if I slip up.” He didn’t take anything the Watcher said at face value. This man would use the tiniest excuse to stake him and probably wouldn’t take long to find one, might even manufacture one. 

“Just make sure you don’t,” was Giles’ only reply.

“What are you getting outta this, Rupes?” Spike sneered. “I know it ain’t my pleasurable company. Is it by chance my handy dandy intellect?” 

Giles cursed himself for being so transparent. “No… no, Spike… I… oh damn it,” he spluttered. 

Spike congratulated himself on catching the Watcher. “ _Trittbrettfahrer_ , that’s what you are,” he said with a raised eyebrow. 

“Excuse me?”

“I said _Trittbrettfahrer_ , are you deaf? It’s German slang—a running-board rider, someone who benefits from someone else’s hard work,” Spike snorted, giving the Watcher a hard glare full of meaning.

“I-I never said—”

“Come off it, Rupes! I might have all this garbage in my mind, but I’ve been around a few hundred years and I was bloody perceptive before I got this… this… piece of shit shoved in my brain. That hasn’t changed.”

The tension in the room mounted as Spike got up from the sofa and moved away. “I don’t know what’s going on here, Watcher!” He was beginning to wear a path in the floorboards with his constant pacing. “I detest all of you, but I have to admit that I’m scared out of my bloody mind and have nowhere else to go.”

A panicked tone crept into Spike’s voice and for the first time, Giles felt empathy for the vampire. Here he was, trying to adapt to a lifestyle not of his own making, and as with any sort of evolution of the species, pain was part of the growing process. Spike’s despair was not lost on Giles as he got up from his seat and laid a firm hand on his arm.

“I am reminded of a saying,” he said in a softened tone, bringing Spike’s attention back to him. “’Gloriousness and wretchedness need each other. One inspires us, the other softens us.’ Your _plight_ has not gone unnoticed, Spike.”

Spike looked in the other Brit’s eyes, searching for pity, but finding none. “Was that Socrates?” Spike choked out. “Cause he never wrote down a single word of his teachings.” He rubbed his temples, lamenting the fact that he couldn’t even get emotional without some off-the-wall fact hijacking his battered mind. Dru was starting to look sane compared to him at this point. 

Giles smiled gently. “It doesn’t matter. Why don’t you get some sleep? I know you could use it.”

Spike nodded solemnly and walked towards the stairs, turning at the foot for a peace offering. “May the forces of evil become confused on the way to your house.”

A full-throated laugh shook Giles as he watched the tired vampire slowly mount the stairs.


	3. Chapter 3

Buffy had convinced Willow to accompany her on patrol that evening, feeling some fresh air and vampire stakeage would distract her from thinking of Oz. Besides, she herself needed to sort out her feelings in regards to the Giles and Spike situation. And Willow wisdom seemed just the thing.

“I mean, I can’t believe Giles unlocked his chains just because of a little nose bleed. Wasn’t like I’ve never made his nose bleed before,” Buffy muttered for the fourth or fifth time that evening as they walked through the moonlit cemetery. She had told Willow what had happened earlier that day, the story starting in disbelief but ending with outright contempt. “If Spike were a televangelist, Giles would be throwing money at him.”

“Maybe he’s really sick, Buffy. I mean, Giles is pretty hard to fool… you know, him being Watchery and all,” Willow finished lamely.

Buffy snorted. “Yeah, well I think Spike has him snowed with his ‘Rain Man’ routine.”

Willow said nothing. She wasn’t in the mood to argue with anyone, especially Buffy. The only reason she’d agreed to go on patrol was so Buffy would stop going on and on about Spike, but it turned out to no avail. Buffy wasn’t listening anyway, aside from when she had asked Buffy if she intended to accept Riley’s picnic invitation. What she really wanted to do was crawl under the covers and sob her eyes out. Instead, she was in a dark, damp graveyard threatening vamps with good old dustiness and listening to Buffy blather on about things she was no longer interested in. Goddess, it just wasn’t fair. There was Buffy, going on about _three_ men in her life and Willow couldn’t keep even one interested in her. After deciding that life wasn’t fair, she asked the obligatory questions any good friend would ask. 

“So, a picnic…” Willow started.

“Yeah, it's just, different, you know? A picnic. First of all, daylight—kind of a new venue, Buffy-wise. And the best part—he said he would bring all the food, so all I have to do is show up and eat. Those are two things I'm really good at.”

“So he's nice?”

Buffy nodded enthusiastically. “Very, very.” 

Willow looked at her out of the corner of her eye. “And there's sparkage?” That ‘very, very’ statement sounded a bit forced.

Buffy started describing her supposed connection with Riley, but it sounded too bland, like it was **too** normal. Buffy’s quest for the ordinary probably stemmed from Angel leaving, something Buffy still hadn’t forgiven the broody vamp for, and also forcing herself to put on a brave face. Willow could see it now— _Upstanding American hero-type boy meets college freshman girl who happens to be the Slayer, they date and canoodle, then she squeezes the life out of him with a bear hug._ End of ‘normal’ for Buffy.

“Yeah, he's… have you seen his arms? Those are good arms to have. I really like him. I do.” 

_Oz had wonderful arms_ , Willow thought sadly. _Arms that won’t ever hold me again._ She was about to tear up, but composed herself in time, thinking over her friend’s last statement. It sounded an awful lot like when a girl says a guy is ‘nice.’ “So he’s nice...but?”

Buffy hesitated. “I don't know. I really like being around him, you know? And I think he cares about me… but… I just—” She turned and staked a vamp that suddenly jumped out at them from behind a bush. “I just feel like something's missing,” she continued without missing a beat.

Willow watched the dust settle over Buffy’s shoulder. “It’s the fact that he's not making you miserable, isn’t it?” 

“Exactly! Riley seems so solid, like he wouldn't cause me heartache.” _Not like Angel_ was left unsaid. 

“Get out. Get out while there's still time!” Willow said with feigned worry. Maybe if she’d gotten out sooner with Oz then she could have avoided the heartache. As it was, she was barely holding on to any semblance of being interested in life.

Buffy smiled at her dramatic response. “I know, I have to get away from that bad boy thing. There's no good there… too painful.”

Willow bit her lip, hard. She wouldn’t cry, she would _not_ cry. “Yeah, pain is not a friend.” 

Buffy continued to talk, oblivious to her friend’s emotional state. She was on a roll and heaven forbid anyone that happened to be in the way of the freight train that was the Slayer. “But I can't help thinking, isn't that where the fire comes from? Can a nice, safe relationship be that intense? I know its nuts, but part of me believes that real love and passion have to go hand in hand with pain and fighting.”

“Like you and Spike,” Willow offered as an example.

“What?” Buffy stopped abruptly and stared at her best friend as if she’d grown horns and a tail. 

Willow looked back at her. “Like you and Spike?” This time it sounded more like a suggestion than actual fact. 

“That bleached pest? Until he became an overnight savant, he was on everyone’s do-not-call list!” Buffy fumed. First Giles and now Willow. The only thing she had in common with Spike was the pain and fighting, not the love and passion. 

Willow held out her hands in a flustered gesture; she was nearing her breaking point. “Buffy, you’re always fighting with him, physically and otherwise. You cause each other enough pain to put an iron maiden to shame and you both live and love so passionately. So really, not seeing the difference here.”

“Wills, you-you can’t seriously compare—”

“Stop! I-I… I can’t do this anymore,” Willow whimpered and ran off in the direction of campus. 

Buffy started to run after her, but a strong arm hauled her back, bracing her body against something solid. 

Outrage and fury swept over the Slayer as she turned with her stake held high, coming face to face with the topic of their conversation. “Spike,” she spat, stake poised over his unbeating heart. “Let me go, or I swear you’ll wish you’d stayed with the Commandos.” 

Without thinking, Spike grabbed her wrist and shook it hard enough that she dropped the stake. Burning hot pain seared through his frontal lobe as he released her, stumbling backwards and hitting a grave marker. “Fucking hell!”

She quickly retrieved the stake and took up a fighting stance, her hand poised to strike as she watched him slowly gather his wits. “What are you doing here, Spike? Giles may let the rabid dog run loose, but I have no reservations about dusting your ass.” 

He smeared the blood that trickled from his nose across his face, trying to wipe it off as he clutched his forehead, swaying slightly on his feet. Buffy frowned as he staggered towards her and reached blindly for something that wasn’t moving to hold on to—which just happened to be Buffy’s arm. “God, Slayer… feel like I’m… three sheets to the wind,” he moaned leaning his head on her forearm. 

“Three who’s to the what?” she asked, her guard slightly lowered.

“Three sheets to the wind,” he muttered again, shifting to an upright position, his balance still precarious as he clutched her.

“Drunk,” he clarified at the blank look on her face, then, noticing he still had his hand on her arm, he abruptly let go. He didn’t want another round of crispy fried Spike brains, because frankly, he was surprised he had anything left to think with. 

“What do sheets have to do with being drunk? I thought being drunk was mostly about drowning your sorrows or an ex-wife stealing the car and driving to Texas sort of thing—you know, something depressing like that,” she asked, relaxing her stance once she realized Spike couldn’t hurt her; the state he was in now, he could barely stand. Maybe Willow was right… maybe this thing was making him ill. 

“In the seafaring world, pet, ropes with different functions are given names. For example,” he raised his fingers, ticking them off with each fact. “Halyards raise and lower sails.” He raised a second finger. “Sheets hold the sails upright.” He grimaced as a phantom pain flitted across his mind, clearing his throat to continue. “If a sheet is loose, the sail slaps in the wind and the ship becomes unsteady. Having two sheets loose to the wind is a big problem. Having three sheets to the wind will make the ship rock and reel like a drunken sailor.” Having finished his explanation, he searched his pocket for his lighter and smokes. 

Buffy stared at him wide-eyed, her mouth hanging open as she finally took a good look at Spike. His cheeks were hollow; more so than usual, and there were black circles under his eyes, not just dark ones. Black. His eyes were sunken a little in the sockets as starvation drew his skin taut over his face. She watched him light the cigarette, noticing that his hands were shaking. His belt was notched a couple inches tighter than the last time she’d looked at him, too. In essence, he was a shell of his former ‘Big Bad’ self. 

He pulled a long drag from his cigarette, and without realizing what he was doing, blew it straight towards Buffy. “Oh, sorry ‘bout that, pet!” He moved further away, rubbing his temples to ease the throbbing. 

“If you were alive, those things would kill you.” She coughed, waving the smoke away from her face. 

“If a pack-a-day smoker inhaled a week’s worth of nicotine all at once, they’d die instantly,” he said off offhandedly. 

She frowned in confusion. “Spike, where are you coming up with this stuff?” 

He shrugged slightly and looked off in the distance. “Don’t rightly know, Slayer. Didn’t start ‘til I woke up, staring at the tiles in the Watcher’s bathroom.” He turned his focus back to her. “But it makes me mighty fearful,” he admitted quietly. 

She raised her eyebrows in astonishment at Spike’s confession, but remained silent, sensing he had more to say on the matter.

He pondered what to tell her, pacing back and forth as the words tumbled out. “It’s like a pressure building in my head, right? An’ every time that bleedin’… contraption fires, it feels like my brain’s going to explode. Lose all sense of myself.” His steps slowed and he stood by her side, staring off into the graveyard. “Then all this fuckin’ nonsense starts up in my head and my mouth starts going and after a bit… I don’t know what the hell I’ve said, let alone what I’ve done.” He turned to look at her, eyes shining with unshed tears. “They took away my ability to survive, Slayer. Don’t think they’ll stop until they finish the job.”

Compassion edged its way into her heart, albeit reluctantly. Here was someone that had been yanked from his only known existence and forced to change overnight. It was a little like being called to be the Slayer. One moment she was a happy, carefree teenager worried about the latest trend or fashion. The next, she was scrubbing greasy vampire dust from her clothes in the middle of the night so her mother wouldn’t find out. Yeah, she could relate to the sudden change of lifestyle. 

“You never answered my question of why you’re here, Spike. Does Giles know?”

“Watcher’s the one that sent me, thought you could use some help with patrol. Maybe flash some fang here or there, put the fear of—”

“I don’t think you’ll be much use to me, fangless wonder—you can’t even kill a demon,” she countered before he went further. 

She watched his face fall for a fraction of a second before he regrouped, shutting her out coldly. She sighed heavily; she had better things to do than baby-sit a neutered vampire that couldn’t defend himself. Like finding Willow. Without thinking too hard as to why she was doing it, Buffy dug around in her pocket, pulled out some money, and handed it to a confused looking Spike.

“US paper money is 75% cotton and 25% silk,” he muttered, not looking at her.

Shaking her head in pity, she reached up and tenderly rubbed her thumb under one of his baby-blues. “You have black circles under your eyes. You need to feed more.” She shoved the hand holding the money towards him. “Get some blood at the butcher’s.”

“Buffy…” he started, afraid he was going to fall apart.

She held up her hand. “Don’t.” 

He nodded silently and backed away.

“Besides, I like being able to see your blue eyes without the black,” she whispered and turned to run in the opposite direction. 

Spike watched her run out of the cemetery towards campus. “Blue eyes simply have less pigment in them than brown eyes, pet,” he said to her departing form. 

He pocketed the cash she’d given him and headed towards town to find the nearest butcher shop, pondering the mystery that was Buffy Summers.


End file.
